To kick off AMD's Analyst Day at the company's Sunnyvale, California headquarters, AMD demonstrated a system running on a quad-core desktop 3.0 GHz processor. The processor, codenamed Agena, will be the flagship AMD high-end offering.

The system used standard cooling, though company officials would not disclose how much power the system consumed. In addition to the unannounced processor, the system also included a three-way CrossFire configuration. Two ATI Radeon HD 2900 graphics adaptors provided video acceleration for the system; the third, we were told, provided physics support for the demonstration.

AMD made two systems running the Agena processors available for media to play select games. The company would not let anyone view the system properties details, but sent the two featured images to press beforehand.

AMD's quad-core Opteron launch, slated for later this summer, is expected to debut at 2.0 GHz. Company roadmaps ramped this clock frequency launch down several times -- the company's original roadmap launch plans indicated we would see a 2.6 GHz processor at launch.

An AMD engineer, speaking on terms of anonymity, claimed to DailyTech that the company took on several unplanned respins for the K10-family. "We ramped the spin aggressively. It's going to bring the clock frequencies we need for the desktop," he said.

The company would not comment on when the 3.0 GHz Phenom-based processor would debut, though the company has previously indicated Phenom will ship for volume by the 2007 holiday season.

Update 7/31/2007: According toThe Inquirer, Charlie Demerjian was allowed to confirm the system core frequency was 3.0 GHz from the system BIOS.

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I don't know about the processor taking up 100 - 125W, AMD's thing now for processors is power consumption. Plus the heat sink is really small so I don't think the processor takes that much power and I it's not overclocked with that thing. As for the 2900XT's for crossfire they recommend at least a 750W power supply.

i'd figure that 750 is also with some decent headroom. i would look more at the fan and the heatsink to discover how much watts the cpu uses if it's not known how much power it draws.

and it looks to me to be a 4 heatpipe 80mm fan design. i've got a XP-90 myself with a 92mm fan on it. comparing that to how large it is relative to the memory, seeing as the memory used in the photo's won't be any bigger, means it is absolutely tiny for a stock heatsink, atleast for what you'd expect with the recent speculations.

my guess is that the model on display there is one of the first of a new stepping or something, since it's classified as an engineering sample, though that would depend on how far they are from release. probably the best chips of the wafer too. i'd be willing to bet on 100W under load, though that would be average so AMD will release them with a 120W TDP.

i'll be waiting for the 45nm update though, and see how nehalem fares. hopefully amd will have a smooth transition for once and we can see some real computing :P

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